


Don't Leave Me Behind

by DaisyChainz



Series: Good Omens Ficlets [7]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Confused Crowley (Good Omens), M/M, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-04 01:01:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20261959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaisyChainz/pseuds/DaisyChainz
Summary: A short conversation to sort out a few ineffable issues between an Angel and a Demon.Or, Aziraphale has a few things to say that Crowley wants/doesn't want to hear.





	Don't Leave Me Behind

"Crowley, you fool!"

"Angel, what's gotten into you? I'll be fine."

"But what if your not? What if I lose you? You thought you lost me, look what it did to you!" 

Crowley felt a sudden zing of fury in his gut. He all but growled "they took you from me. You were gone."

Aziraphale's expression softened at his unguarded reply. "Then would you want me to feel the way you did?"

"Angel, you would never feel the way I did. Not that tearing, screaming emptiness that someone you love being gone leaves behind." Noting the Angel's stricken expression something jerked in his stomach and he spit out cruelly "still going too fast for you, Angel?" There was a long pause and even in his anger Crowley's heart ached at the paleness of Aziraphale's features.

"Yes, you always do. But, please tell me you always knew that I loved you in return. Even if I couldn't be as forthright and brave."

"Ha! All of your angelic love." He gave a dismissive wave. "It's the same love you have for everything and everyone. Lumping me in with the rest of the Earthly bodies hardly compares."

"No Crowley. Not angelic love." Aziraphale was looking directly at him, but Crowley refused to face him. He watched the angel from the edge of his sunglasses. "I, I . . . Well, I admit it took a while. I didn't love you at first, of course. I didn't even know you, and we were warned to be leary of anyone from Hell. But then I got to know you better. I realized you were mischievous, that you liked to appear evil. But that you weren't. Not really."

Crowley turned his head to object, to yell and smash something. He couldn't just let Aziraphale run down his reputation . . . Could he?

But when he turned his head their eyes caught. Aziraphale looked so bloody sincere, so concerned. The words froze in his throat. 

"You were so upset in Mesopotamia, when you realized everyone was going to be drowned. Especially the children. You questioned, questioned, questioned. And you were right to." Crowley blinked as Aziraphale looked away. "It was awful. So many awful things. And you spoke up, while I hid behind the," he gave a watery smile, "ineffable excuse."

"Aziraphale . . ."

"Who would have thought the grand plan was that a demon would do better than an angel?"

"Aziraphale, don't be absurd . . ."

"But!" Aziraphale interrupted. "I still didn't learn. All the time I thought you were tempting me: the arrangement, the holy water, helping you to stop Armageddon. I resisted! I told you because it was wrong, it went against our duties, our loyalties, against Her plan. But I lied."

Crowley couldn't help the sound that escaped his throat. "Ah, that's not possible." But it sounded a question. 

Aziraphale nodded. "Yes, I lied. Not at first perhaps, it did go against our duties. But the more I thought of it, the more I considered the consequences, the more fearful I became."

Without thinking Crowley was angry again. "I wouldn't have let them hurt you." He closed his eyes, thinking of how powerless he had been, sitting in the burning bookshop. "I would have given myself to protect you." He hung his head shamefully. 

He felt a gentle hand over his hair. Aziraphale hummed as he stroked over the red strands, lingering over the skin at the back of his neck. Crowley shivered at the touch. 

"It wasn't myself that I feared for."

Turning his head so as not to throw off Aziraphale's hand, Crowley furrowed his brow into deep lines. "Then what? She wouldn't have punished the Earth for your crimes. Even She wouldn't have done that."

Aziraphale leaned forward and touched their foreheads together. "How could you not know? I said it, I told you, So Many Times."

"Then what?"

"You Crowley. It was you I feared for."

"Me?" He sounded incredulous. He almost pulled away but couldn't break the contact.

"I warned you, that if your side ever caught wind of the Arrangement they would destroy you. But you persisted. That was why I didn't want to give you the holy water. If just one drop had spilled on you . . ." The hand at Crowley's neck tightened and Crowley rolled his forehead against Aziraphale's to look him in the eye. 

"It didn't. It saved my life."

"But what if . . ."

"No Angel. No what if's. Only what was."

Aziraphale gave a shaky sigh and continued. "I was so frightened when they came for you, even though you were me." He smiled weakly. "Straight into the lion's den you went."

Crowley tried to grin. "I wasn't worried about you. I knew you would give 'em Hell."

Aziraphale burst into a relieved, sniffling laugh. "I didn't even realize why I was so concerned about you, not until 1941."

"What was special about 1941?"

"Absolutely nothing."

"Then what . . ."

"Nothing special happened, nothing unusual. You did what you always did. You came for me. You helped me. You questioned why evil had to win. A demon! It was then I realized why I wanted to protect you. Why I always got this strange fluttery feeling in my chest everytime you appeared." Aziraphale pulled his head back, but remained joined to Crowley by the hand on the back of his neck. 

"I loved you. I loved you in a way I had never loved anyone or anything. Not in an angelic way. In the way a man loves another that has fought and argued and dragged them into the light, no matter how much he thought he was already right and wholesome."

Aziraphale closed his eyes and pushed their foreheads back together. Crowley couldn't stop himself responding, wanting to get closer, wanting to touch, still too afraid to.

"Crowley, I love you. It took me a long time to realize it, and to realize that you loved me. And that your love saved me."

They stood quietly for a while, Aziraphale having said his piece, Crowley unsure how to respond. Finally he managed, "I won't go if you don't want me to."

Aziraphale gave a long sigh. "I wish I could agree to that. But I know you're right, that it needs to be done. That it's the Right thing to do."

"What if you come with me? We make a pretty dangerous team, in case you hadn't noticed."

"Dangerous to ourselves, perhaps." Aziraphale managed a small smile. 

"What? How can you say that, we stopped the apocalypse and everything."

"An eleven year old boy stopped the apocalypse, with his eleven year old friends."

"Ah, but we helped!"

"So did a witch, and a hopeless computer engineer."

"I don't want them on my team for this, Aziraphale. Just you."

Aziraphale met his eyes at the sudden serious turn of his tone. 

"Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes. You are the demon with the righteous compass. I'm with you."

"Ugh. That sounds too goody-goody. Besides, to do it right I would just have to give it away."

"You're never going to let me live that down, are you?"

"I'm not righteous, because I refuse to give it away. You, you are my compass Aziraphale."

Aziraphale released Crowley's neck and they both straightened up. Crowley ran his hands nervously over his thighs as the Angel regarded him with a pursed, thoughtful mouth. 

"I don't know about that, My Dear. But I do know you are the one being in the Universe I can count on if I get into trouble."

Finally relieved to be getting back to action, Crowley grinned widely. "Well then, let's go get into some trouble!"

"Oh Good Lord . . ."


End file.
